


I See Your True Technicolors

by MissMaxime



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: (psst it's marcus), Adventure & Romance, BBFs on a quest, Canon Divergent, F/M, With just a little angt because c'mon it's 3x04, and some kisses, everyone is in their feels, fluffy fun, one of them is better at dealing with them than the others, there might be clowns, there's magic but not so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24421780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMaxime/pseuds/MissMaxime
Summary: ‘When two kids decide to take matters in their own hands and go on a wild adventure to redefine their friendship and unite their families again, the most beautiful of miracles happens.’ Or, that’s, you know, what all the books and fairytales say. Jane and Marcus however, unchain a train wreck of a chase while they descend further into fantasy. All the while Beth and Rio can’t prevent reality crashing down on them like the wobbly house of cards it is.Written for the Good Girls Prompt-a-Thon 2020. It's set during 3x04; after the bar-scene, but before Rio finds out about the funny money. Canon divergent after the barscene.
Relationships: Beth Boland & Jane Boland, Beth Boland/Rio, Jane Boland & Marcus
Comments: 35
Kudos: 597
Collections: Good Girls Prompt-a-thon 2020





	1. Through The Looking Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the GGPAT2020 for the following prompt: Marcus and Jane are very upset that they aren’t allowed to have play dates anymore so they hatch a plan to run away together. The next time Beth takes her kids to the park Rio and Marcus are there they wait until the two of them start their usual bickering and take off. Then Beth and Rio have to work together to find them, snarking at each other the whole time. Fluffy fun, maybe Jane is the evil master mind and Marcus is just following her lead. Maybe when they find them they won’t come out until their parents promise they can have play dates again. 🤷🏼

“And Mirabel twirled and a tornado full of sparkles swooped us up!” Jane exclaims, full of excitement, while she makes wild hand gestures showing how the winds whooshed around her. But when she looks back to the dinner table, she finds she has either unimpressed or uninterested family members as companions. Mommy and daddy are talking under their voice to each other. Kenny’s not that subtly chatting on his phone, which he tries to hide under the table. And Emma and Danny are more ingulfed in actually eating than listening to their little sister. Annoyed, she folds her small arms across her chest, furrowing her brows. “I am _telling_ a _story_!”

Kenny looks up. “Your stories are dumb,” he sighs.

“Are not! _Mom!_ ” she whines, her eyes getting wet.

But mom and dad are too wrapped up in their discussion to pay her attention, so Jane does what any self-respecting Boland would do. She grabs her still full bowl of, by now lukewarm, tomato soup, slowly drawing it closer as she narrows her eyes at the people around the table. And she sees Kenny sees it coming, but he just suspends his spoon in mid-air, waiting to see if she actually does it. Jane, not really one to leave something up for challenge, slowly lifts her bowl up in the air – the moment almost frozen in time, before dumping the whole content over her head.

“Now will you listen!” she yells, on the verge on crying. And she drops her bowl unceremoniously onto the white carpet, in the midst of the red splatters.

And she has never seen a moment going from slow motion, so fast into fast forward. Her brothers first wide-eyed witnessing as she douches herself in soup, to breaking into fits of laughter. Emma retracting her feet away from the red puddle that seems ever be expanding on the floor. Her mom standing up so fast, her chair falling onto the ground by the force of it, rushing over to see if Jane is okay. Jane cannot really see what her dad is doing by now, the soup dripping into her eyes, her mom wiping it away with her napkin making it even worse.

“KB, put that phone away!” she hears her dad, as a bright white light subsides in her perimeter.

And it is all these things happening at once. The hollers and laughter bending into low-rumbling echoes in her head, drumming into her ears. Daddy clapping in his hands, stomping his feet as he makes everyone clear the room. The clattering of plates and cutlery cutting off the thread of joyful feelings she’s still barely grasping on to. All the noise is just making it too hard to get her thoughts together, a hot ugly feeling spreading through her chest.

Now she’s actually crying, as her mom tries to stroke her dirty hair out of her face, mushing the noodles to a pulp. “You want to tell us what’s wrong, honey?” mom asks – far to calm for this whole situation, as daddy joins them. But even though Jane wants to tell more, her constant hiccupping prevents her from making any coherent sentences, so she just keeps crying her eyes out.

Somewhere beyond the veil of her own sorrows she hears her mom asks her dad: “Could you...?” probably indicating the mess around her. He goes away, and she hears the rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, and a bucket being filled with water in the sink.

“Do you want to get cleaned up?” mommy asks when Jane calms down a little. She’s rubbing her eyes too hard, trying to stop her tears from spilling out.

Jane reaches her little arms out, and nods. There is a little hesitation in her mom’s posture before she scoops her into her arms. But Jane latches on immediately, pulling herself into her. “Ba-th,” she pouts, exhausted, expecting her mom to just want to do a quick douching off in the shower. And she can just see her mom’s face drop for a millisecond before she looks at Jane with her pretty smile and says: “Sure. With bubbles?”

Jane, still red-faced, not only from the bright red soup, but from her tantrum, nods vividly. Even at the height of her emotion Jane knows very well to take advantage of every opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with one of her parents. Especially now that mommy works too, again, that time is even less than before she had to share her fulltime with her three siblings.

She looks down at mommy’s pink blouse, now also completely drenched with red streaks. She giggles a little, putting her dirty hands on mommy’s cheeks, smearing some soup like she’s going into war. “You’re dirty too,” she says, as they walk into the kitchen.

But she’s distracted again, pulling some baking soda out of a cabinet and holding it out to daddy. “Put that on the carpet first,” she says. He looks annoyed. “It’ll never come out otherwise,” mommy sighs, as she eyes the bucket with soapy water. _”_ _Trust me,_ ” she says pointedly. And daddy’s mouth forms a harsh line as he snags the container from her, seemingly understanding her.

“Do you want to hear the rest of my story?” Jane asks, her red eyes big and hopeful as she clutches mommy’s neck.

“Of course,” she smiles.

*

Mommy strips them both down, tosses their clothes in the hamper, and fills the tub with water and Jane’s favorite bath bubbles. Jane finally has a chance to tell her story, starting all over again and mommy nods while she loses herself in made-up details, and asking her questions like she wants to. And the thing is, it’s not like she doesn’t completely understand that not everybody listens. When they tell about their day Jane always comes last, sometimes they have already finished dinner. She sees her brothers’ and sisters minds drifting off – or Kenny usually into his phone. And especially if she also wants to tell about the exact same dance class Emma has already told about – them only being a year apart putting them in the same recital group. But you see – she also has stories to tell. She just likes to spice them up a little, making an actual story instead of a daily report.

So when she’s in the tub, her back towards her mom, who’s massaging shampoo into Jane’s hair, careful not to get any into her daughter’s eyes, she keeps dreaming. She giggles as her mom’s floppy mermaid tail splashes water over the edge of the tub, contently waving its fins. Jane’s got a tail too, but it’s not nearly as pretty as her mom’s. Hers is still greenish, a little hint of purple at the end. Mommy’s is sparkly, a mesh of purples and reds, shining under the light of the bright bathroom lamps.

“Oh, we’re laughing now?” she asks. And Jane looks over her shoulder, the streaks of tomato soup on her mom’s cheeks replaced by a bright red blush from the warmth.

Jane shrugs, looking back ahead of her at the faucet that is still happily squirting bright water and bubbles, even though she knows mommy has turned it off earlier.

“Want to tell me what that was?” mommy asks again, while she rinses Jane’s hair with water from a seashell. She runs her fingers through her hair, getting rid of all the pulp.

Jane sighs loudly, dramatically one could even say. “No one listens,” she pouts, her little face scrunching up.

Mommy’s flappy tail falls flat, and she turns Jane around in her lap. “How ‘bout we start with you tomorrow?” she asks.

Jane clutches the yellow fish sponge in her hand tightly, very obvious looking away before looking at her mom again. “Kenny says my stories are stupid.”

Mommy takes the sponge from her hands and lightly brushes her face, making a point of bumping her nose. “They’re not. It’s just, some people like real stories, and some people like your stories.”

“My stories are not fake!” Jane angers.

“That’s not what I mean, bunny.”

“I want Marcus!” she follows up before mommy can continue her preach. She grabs the sponge and throws it against the opposite wall, where it sticks for a few seconds before lamely tumbling onto the ground. “I want to play with him! Why can’t I play with him?”

And the thing is, it’s been a few weeks now. And at first, she could accept that Marcus had become sick, yet that he had enough energy to play their soccer games after a week, but she just doesn’t believe it anymore. She just _knows_ there is something going on, but no one will tell her. The water completely engulfs them now, and while Jane is still upset, she relishes in the underwater life that appears around them; completely missing her mother’s shifting eyes, racking her brain for a fitting answer. The melody of The Little Mermaid’s Under the Sea starts playing in her head, completing her mental picture, but it doesn’t really contribute to Jane’s all-round focus.

The doorknob rattles as daddy barrels into the bathroom. Jane was momentarily distracted by the flock of seahorses going in circles around her head, until she sees her dad with giant dark scales, one claw still on the doorknob as he stills in his movement, but his feelers still bobbing as he searches for mommy’s gaze. “Daddy’s a lobster,” Jane laughs, but minds her own business by dressing Beth’s shoulders with all the foam, covering her seashell necklace.

“What’s up?” mommy asks.

And daddy’s scales start to turn red, much like the TikTok that Danny showed her once about how lobsters are being boiled in restaurants. Only daddy doesn’t have the colorful bracelets around his claws, he flails them around as he shoots large bubbles from his mouth.

Her mom puts her hands over Jane’s ears, eyes narrowing at daddy. She singsongs something incomprehensible at him, before he turns on his tail and slugs out of the room.

“Is daddy mad at me?” she asks when mommy removes her hands from her ears. But she just smiles at her, flapping her tail again, making Jane ride a wave in the water.

“Daddy just doesn’t like cleaning that much,” she says, comforting.

Jane has calmed down a bit, until her brain circles back to the important thing they were initially talking about. “When can I see Marcus? “

Beth’s face falls. “He’s got a bug, honey.”

“No, he doesn’t! Hayden went to play at his house after soccer,” Jane says, sure of herself. Actually, she knows this all too well, Hayden would not shut up about it. Taunting her that he was his new best friend during the game. Which resulted in her bagging a yellow card when she ‘missed’ the ball and made a sliding right onto the boys’ foot. Fracturing his glasses as he fell down flat on his face. “We have to get him a present,” she sulks, sagging against her mom’s chest, circling her arm around her neck.

“When’s his birthday?”

“In two weeks,” she says. “His party is planes and dinosaurs and there’s going to be a clown,” she rambles, sniffling a little. She looks up. “Can you ask Marcus mom what he wants?”

And mommy makes that sad face she does when she’s about to say something that she doesn’t really mean. Like the time she told her they were going to make it to the game when the car had broken down. Or when Emma had accidentally pushed over her project for the science fair, she had told her that they were going to be able to fix it. “I’ll see what I can do, honey,” she tells her.

But Jane knows. Knows mommy is lying. She’ll have to fix this mess herself.

*

“You have to help me,” Jane says to the bulky man perched upon the picknick table. It’s still morning and she’s in her bunny onesie with its ears drooping from the hood to her shoulders. Her tiger slippers getting wet by the dew from the grass. She clutching to her iPad as she looks at him with her big blue eyes, her mouth scrunching into a pout Mick has seen her mom pull on Rio more than once – most ineffectively, according to the latter.

He looks at her incredulously, eyes shifting around like this is some kind of trap. “Your momma send you?” he asks, putting his vape away.

Jane looks back at him like he’s crazy. “Daddy’s at work, and mommy’s having mom time with Emma in the front yard. My grandma is here.”

“So ask her, little monster.” It’s endearing, but he says it so gruffly Jane doesn’t really know what to think of it. Truthfully, she doesn’t really know what Mick is doing here at all. He’s been hanging around their house for over two weeks. Mommy told her that he was a friend who wanted to join the Neighborhood Watch so he had to do an exam for it by guarding their house. He looks pretty scary; Jane doesn’t think he really needs so long of a test to see if he can keep the neighborhood safe of thieves and thugs.

“Mister Mick,” she sighs, tired of it. “Old people don’t know iPads,” stating this universal truth. She pawns her clammy hands around the iPad before holding it out to him. “I need an app.”

“Don’t you have brothers who know this shit?”

Jane giggles, _’Shit,’_ she repeats softly. Before getting serious again. “They’re out.”

Mick looks at the house, not seeing any movement there at the moment aside from the husband’s mother vacuuming the living room. “Fine. Give me that.”

Jane gives him the iPad and squeezes her hands together in excitement. She giddily climbs onto the picknick table to take a seat next to him.

“What do you want? Flappy Bird?”

“Chess,” she says, leaning in to see while he opens the apple store.

“Chess?” he asks, arching an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little young for that?”

Her bunny ears drop a little more at that, but her eyes shoot daggers. “The rook goes forward and sideways in a straight line. The pawn can only go one step, always forward. But the first move can be two steps. The queen is the best, she can do everything. The king is worth the most, but also weak –”

“Alright, alright,” Mick laughs, a pleasant rumbly sound coming from the back of his throat. “You know the rules, I get it. Which one do you want, there’s like a million.”

“Royal Chess Universe,” she says, maybe a little too fast. She clears her throat. “My friend Hannah from soccer has it, and we need to practice if we want to win the school competition,” she adds. She eyes the screen as Mick scrolls through the apps, she briefly looks up at him and smiles as he reaches the right one. When he clicks on it, she claps in her hands.

He sets the app up and hands the iPad back to her.

“Thank you so much, Mister Mick,” she hops off the picknick table. “Do you want something from the fridge? I can’t reach the kettle or the coffee.” Some sentences she obviously picked up from the adults around her.

“That’s alright, little monster. You help me out next time,” he says.

Jane shrugs, her hood dropping onto her shoulders from the movement. “Ok. I have to get ready for piano now. Bye!” she says, as she leaves him setting outside as she makes her way back into the house. Het slippers making wet suction sounds as she threads the grass.

*

It’s honestly surprisingly easy to convince her mom to go to the big park that’s about a fifteen-minute car drive away. She had this whole elaborate plan about needing different leaves for a school project, and that was the _only_ park with something resembling some woods, and a lot variety in trees. But when she made the suggestion Kenny immediately cuts in with a dramatic sigh of relief. “Yes, please, my classmates hang out at the ramps there. I don’t wanna hang out with these babies again,” he said, gesturing at his brother and sisters.

“I’m not a baby,” Emma pouts, crossing her arms across her chest. “I don’t want to hang out with you! All you do is fart and make dumb jokes.”

Kenny grins and holds his finger out to Danny, who immediately pulls it. Kenny’s barely able to make a farting noise, as he is already tumbling into a fit of laughter with his brother.

“Okay,” Mom says, as she clears the breakfast dishes from the table. They are all still in their PJ’s on this Saturday morning, just the five of them, Dean already left for work. Mom points between Emma and Danny, “You two, fancy clothes, you have birthday parties. They’re on your bed.” They slide off their chairs, leaving Kenny and Jane. “You…,” she contemplates, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, “just wear anything.”

Kenny, just now realizing the implications of this situation, wide-eyed: “Wait, I’m just there with _Jane_?”

Jane leans forward onto the table, framing her face cutely with both her hands and bats her eyes at him feeling far too happy about herself. “I’ve got a good story for in the car,” she smiles, through Kenny’s wails of annoyance.

Eventually the drive ends up being too chaotic for Jane to get a word in. With mom unloading Emma and Danny at different addresses, handing them the right presents, and Kenny forgetting his longboard, so they have to circle back one time. Jane sits in the backseat, wearing her dungarees with her purple tutu. Wrapped in her yellow cape, she just looks through the window, the only sounds in the car are the soft tunes of the radio and Kenny’s mobile game.

When they pull up Kenny immediately jumps from the front seat, grabs his longboard, and intends to walk away before her mom tells him to meet them at the picknick tables near the jungle gym at lunchtime. She circles back to the car and slides the door open so Jane can get out. While mom opens the trunk to get her bag, Jane gets out. She’s pretty nervous, scanning the park for familiar faces.

“C’mon, honey,” Momma says, holding her hand out for Jane to take. She takes it and they make their way to the monkey bars.

And.

Yes.

Yes!

Jane wiggles out of her mother’s grip and almost falls over her own legs as the runs towards the wooden castle on the playground. “Marcus!” she yells, drawing attention from other kids and parents. He turns his head, giving her that million-dollar smile before jumping down onto the ground from the wooden caste. Jane falls into his arms with such force that they tumble onto the ground in a gleeful mess.

*

“Yo, pop, where you at?” Rio says, circling the wooden castle. Coming to an abrupt standstill as he sees Beth walking up to what he can make out his son and her youngest daughter entangled in a pile of joy and giggles. His mouth immediately forming a hard line, his jaw tightening at the sight of her. Her stride slows down as she catches Rio’s eye, walking towards them tentatively, gripping the straps of her floral picknick bag a little tighter.

“Hi,” she eventually settles on.

Jane and Marcus run off, chasing after each other on the rope bridge.

Rio puts his hands into the pockets off his jacket and rocks his jaw. “Yeah, think we leaving,” he says, looking at Elizabeth. She shouldn’t be here, around him. Their latest conversation at the bar still fresh in his mind. It is like this woman makes a sport out of it to invade every aspect of his life, tagging his personal spaces with her whiffs of vanilla shampoo and penetrating his heart and mind with her emotional ammo.

She takes a few steps closer, way too many for his liking. “No, wait!” she hisses.

“You wanna hang out or something?”

Beth rolls her eyes at that. She motions at their kids fighting each other with sticks as swords, laughing and running around. “Jane. She’s been so upset since she and Marcus don’t play anymore.”

“Yeah? Whose fault is that?” Because that really is all on her.

She drops her bags onto the bench before sagging down next to them. “Please, just, half an hour,” she pleads, looking at him with those big baby blues, as if that would make any difference. But as much as he hates to admit it to himself, holding up a conversation with Marcus the past weeks without him mentioning ‘Jane this’ or ‘Jane says’ has been nonexistent. With the absolute low being Rio’s bedtime storytelling being shot down as insufficient because Jane tells stories way better. And that really is the last thing that makes him cave to her request. But not before he makes a show of it to sit down the furthest place away possible from her on the bench.

“Marcus invited Jane to his birthday party,” she says.

He glances sideways at her. “Ain’t gonna happen,” he says, shaking his head.

“What am I going to tell her?” she says, undercurrent of anger in her voice. His remains stoic though, more amused by her squirming underneath his gaze.

“Not my problem,” he answers.

“I can just drop her off, you don’t even have to see me,” Beth tries. He looks at her and sees that even she already knows this is a futile argument. Worked up, she crosses her arms across her chest, her face gets a little blotchy while she presses her feelings down about this ordeal.

He just waits her out.

“You know, we shouldn’t punish them because of our… _situation,_ ” she settles on.

He laughs, shaking his head in disbelieve. “Which is that? You conning his mama for weeks, or you poppin’ me and leavin’ me for dead?”

*

As both Rio en Beth belt up from their places on the bench, Marcus and Jane watch from a few feet away.

“Let’s go,” Jane says, tightening her cape around her neck. She checks her pink power ranger backpack before slinging it onto her back.

Marcus lays one quick glance on his dad and her mommy fighting, then holds out his hand. “Let’s go,” he smiles back. Jane mirrors his smile and takes his hand. They disappear in a flash of light.

*

Jane lays on her back, the ground warm and soft. She opens her eyes and shields them from the bright beams of sunlight attacking her vision. There’s a light and warm breeze licking the patches of visible skin, and she hears distant splashing of water. All of a sudden, she feels a nasty cough coming up the back of her throat, convulsing, she manages to turn her head sideways. And while it may start as a regular cough, she starts to cough out water and… a goldfish? She claps her hand over her mouth, as she watches the tiny fish flap around onto the sand.

She gets to her feet and looks around. Her sneakers buried halfway into the white sand of a long, stretched out beach. A deep blue sea lazily breaking onto the shore, breaking the otherwise silent surrounding with its sounds. Quickly, Jane scoops the fish into her hands and brings it to the sea. When she watches it scoot away into the deep blue an instant feeling of anxiety creeps up on her. Marcus. She scans the beach, the edge of the jungle guarded with tall palm trees, before finally spotting him sitting a few feet away, looking a little disoriented.

“Are you okay?” Jane asks worried, as she falls down onto her knees beside him. He looks fine, his knee is scraped though.

Marcus rubs the wound. “Must have tripped when we ran,” he says.

Jane takes of her cape and puts it onto his knee, stopping the bleeding. It’s really not that bad, but the sand sticking to it makes it look a little nasty. She falls back, deflated. “Now what?” she sulks.

Marcus stands tall on his feel, pulling her up. He puffs his chest out. “I have an idea. Tia Angela lives close, we could go see here.”

All the alarm bells go off in Jane’s head. If she were to show up alone at Aunt Annie of Aunt Ruby they would signal in her mom and dad before she could say ‘hey’. She clenches her hands together and mauls over their options. “Won’t she tell?” she asks.

“Daddy drops me off with her all the time when he has to check in with the store across the street. She’s nice, little weird. But she has Ninja Turtle band-aids.”

And Jane doesn’t like it, this wasn’t the plan. They were going to go into the woods and first find the hollow tree Marcus had been talking about. And then they were going to go follow her route. She even drew a color-coded map, borrowed Emma’s scout compass, read a survival book – she was prepared for this, dammit! But she couldn’t very well let Marcus bleed to death on a deserted island now, could she? So she sucks up her annoyance. “Okay, show me.”

Marcus leads her across the shore, and Jane considers if they shouldn’t walk a little closer to the tree line, not liking how exposed they are. When a flock of seagulls suddenly flies over them, gawking loudly, she nearly jumps out of her skin, clinging to Marcus’ arm. He smiles soundlessly.

“It’s just birds,” he assures her, while they wander into a more rocky part of the beach.

Jane scrunches her face. “They’re angry birds,” she mopes.

The rocks are increasing in size and getting steeper, they have to climb. And she notices Marcus is having a little trouble doing that, but he doesn’t say anything. As they get higher the sounds of the water are getting louder and more violent, beating against the rocks that are half submerged into the water. When the waves crash, water gets sprayed onto them, making the rocks slippery. They’re almost there though, Jane sees the pile of rubble plateauing a few feet up.

_”_ _Oooh, kids,_ “ she hears echoing from down on the ground. And she snaps her head around. And, on the ground, is a… clown? Jane can’t really make out their face, only the white make-up, red lips and round nose. It’s got red, curly hair and it’s wearing a onesie with lots of tiny diamond-shaped patches of different colors. It smiles a little menacing while it crafts a poodle from a balloon.

“Marcus,” she hisses.

“Just a sec,” he says, finding his footing on a rock.

“We have to go!” she says, high pitched, as she sees the clown moving forward.

Marcus looks over his shoulder, now having the clown in view, and his eyes widen. He scrambles to climb higher to Jane. She reaches out her hand for him to grab. The clown giggles muffled like it’s under water. It wraps its hands around the poodle and squeezes to hard that the balloon animal pops with a loud noise. It laughs again.

Jane gets ahold on Marcus hand and pulls him up to the flat stone she’s standing on. They rush now, climbing faster and faster, hurried by the sounds the clown makes as it closes the space between them more and more. They reach the top of rock, not daring to look back, Marcus drags Jane with him to a circle of rocks a little in the distance. Now that they are able to run again, the sounds of the clown die down, drowned in the pounding of the sound in their ears.

When they step into the circle of rocks it’s like a wall of magic closes behind them, ringing as it lights up once to show its presence. Jane sags onto the ground, panting heavily, while Marcus leans against a rock in the middle of the circle. They barely have time to catch their breath before a woman materializes next to them. She’s really beautiful. Long dark hair pulled back into a braid, her eyes painted with a thick black line that curls into a point, her skin a little darker than Marcus’ mom. She’s wearing floaty purple robes, her head crowned with a diadem made of dried flowers.

“Marcus! Bebé!” she squeals, pulling him into a hug, kissing his cheeks.

While he’s fighting the hug of death, Jane has a little time to take in her surroundings. There’s the circle of rocks. But behind Tia Angela, in the sea, are a few dozen tiny maelstroms, all swirling violently and coughing up foam. Better stay away from the edge, they still have important things to do.

By now Tia Angela has spotted Jane’s cape wrapped around Marcus’ knee. “What happened?” she gasps, as she starts untying the piece of cloth.

“Jane and I were just playing tag. I tripped on the curb,” he hisses when she completely unwraps the cape, the part directly covering the wound tearing the freshly dried blood. Angela looks at the cape before tossing it into one of the maelstroms.

“Are you okay, Jane?” she asks.

“Yes, thank you ma’am,” she answers politely.

“Ew, don’t call me ma’am. Just say Tia Angela,” she says, as the rummages behind another rock to extract what Jane can only describe as a magic kit. When Angela rolls out the cloth there’s see-through vials of different colored substances, dried herbs, and bandages.

“Are you a witch?” Jane asks.

Marcus and Tia Angela look at each other and break into laughter. Jane doesn’t really understand what is so funny about that. “Something like that, honey,” she smiles, as she cleans up Marcus’ scrape. “Where’s your dad?” she asks him.

“At the store,” he lies.

“And he doesn’t even say hi?’ Tia Angela says annoyed, tssk-ing. She holds up two bandages with different Ninja Turtles.

“He was in a hurry,” Marcus explains. “Donatello,” he says, looking between the bandages.

“Give me a break, _Fantasma_.”

“Purple mask.”

She peers out the window. “I don’t see his car.”

“We were at Maria’s. Jane never had Pink Tamales.”

Angela feigns offense, sucking in a large intake of breath. “Were you raised by wolves, young lady?”

Jane laughs. Sometimes she kind of wished she were.

Tia Angela finishes up bandaging Marcus’ knee. The scrapes are an angry red, but his skin is barely broken. She waves her hand at the maelstrom, Jane’s cape swooshing out of it and into her hands. It’s magically clean again and she really doubts that this woman isn’t a witch. She kneels down before Jane and puts the cape back on. “So, what are you doing today?” she asks, as she ties the knot at the front. Jane can do this herself, but she kind of likes Angela doing it.

“It’s a surprise,” Jane answers.

“Don’t wanna tell me, huh?” Angela smiles. Jane likes her, she’s fun.

Jane exchanges glances with Marcus before turning back to Angela. She looks around, checking if nobody can hear them. “We’re going on an adventure. And then we’ll go see my nana.” She’s a little unsure if she told too much, she doesn’t want her mom and Mister Rio to find them. But she goes over this info in her head again and she thinks they’ll be fine.

The sound of a bell jingles along the invisible walls. A friendly-looking fat man with a bald head and a beard that reaches the ground enters the circle. Tia Angela immediately jumps up and starts chatting with him, going through the stack of multicolored towels he’s carrying in his hands.

Jane stands. “We have to go,” she speaks softly at Marcus. He nods, standing too. He bends his knee a little, testing it and checking the bandages. It seems like it’s working. And while some of the maelstroms start making a more thundering noise, and Tia Angela drags the man further away from the edge of the circle, laughing loudly at one of the man’s jokes. Jane and Marcus exit the safe space and make their way towards the jungle.

*

It takes a good ten minutes into Beth and Rio’s heated argument before they realize a few tiny people missing from the playground. And as fast as this fire lighted up, it dies down equally as fast once they realize Jane and Marcus are not hiding anywhere in the wooden construction in front of them. In fact, they don’t see them anywhere at all. And Rio’s mind circles through three different thoughts:

#1 For fucks sake. Why me, why now?  
#2 Is this the start of the turf war? Getting to him through his kid? Even he doesn’t steep that low, even set up some of the families Turner took down before the man met his end at a tragic work accident related to illegally purchased firearms.  
#3 This is Elizabeth’s fault.

He feels his discomfort rising as the worst-case scenarios play through his mind. Meanwhile Elizabeth is searching the high castle for the third time. As if their kids will magically appear if she yells a little louder. “Jane said she needed leaves. For a school project. They’re probably just searching for it,” probably trying calm herself down more than sooth any kind of his worry.

“Yeah? She makes a habit of takin’ off without telling ya?” he scoffs, extracting his phone from his pocket.

“No!” she belts, before realization flashes across her eyes, and her hands start waving around all nervous like she’s some kind of whiplashed orchestra conductor. “Well, there was this one time,” she tries selling with that crooked, nervous smile.

He knows when.

A few feet behind the playground there’s a small patch of woods. Not really deemed worthy of the title of woods, but it’s dense and big enough to not see the other side of it. “Let’s go then,” he grunts, rocking his jaw.

Elizabeth looks over his shoulder, at the skate ramp, where a bunch of kids are chilling and laughing. “I can’t just leave Kenny,” she says, as if he just stated something insulting.

That does it, he walks over to her and grabs her upper arm, dragging her towards the tree line. “Yeah, I’m sure a teen would hate to chill with his friends without his mom making hawk eye at him.” She wriggles out of his grasp, infuriated. “Call him, Mick’s in the parking lot.”

Her eyes shift briefly to Mick’s silver sedan, before reluctantly getting her phone out. She starts calling and walks towards the trees – as if moving forward was her idea.

_”Yo, B!”_ _  
  
_

And Rio’s worried that if Elizabeth’s heels aren’t going to cause some injury, the eyepopping from her sockets might will. “ _’Yo, B’_? I’m your mother!” Rio hears muttered groveling on the other end of the line – probably more so to disguise this conversation from his peers than actually expressing some kind of apology. “Anyway, Mister Rio and I are with Jane and Marcus, looking for leaves. If we’re not back in an hour could you check in with Mr. Mick?” Some fake whining about abandoning him. “I’ll call you – yes, call,” she enforces, before changing her voice back to that sweet housewife mode. “Love you, honey. Have fun.” Embarrassed grunt before hanging up.

“Sounds like he’s having fun.”

Elizabeth’s eyes shoot daggers. “Shut up. I’d like to see you when Marcus is in high school. It’s like your child is gone and this monster took their place.” And it’s like she suddenly realizes that this isn’t where they at anymore, immediately crawling back into herself, pulling up her mask as she diverts her eyes to pocket her phone into her bag.

They have reached the path through the trees by now. It’s still a little slippery from the rain yesterday morning, the thick leaves of the trees hanging above them preventing it from drying up as fast as the sand from the playground. And it’s not like he doesn’t worry, he worries alright. It’s just that busying himself with the weather adjustments of Detroit local parks calms his nerves a whole lot more than letting her rambling excuses finding purchase in his headspace. And it’s like she senses it.

“You don’t think something bad happened, right?” she asks, trying to push down the fear he can definitely feel pulsing deep under his skin like angry electricity as well.

“Nahh,” he drags out, dismissing it like it’s nothing.

“I mean, you told me _there ain’t no money in that_ ,” she says, mimicking but not mocking him.  
  


Rio puts his hands in his pockets and shakes his head as they continue their way on the path. But Elizabeth takes his dismissal as a que to take a few steps ahead and stepping in front of him. “You _told_ me there isn’t any money in that,” she repeats, high pitched, unable to cover her worry now.

He doesn’t even try to brush past her and looks her in the eye. “Why you think I went back, huh?”

And it’s not the reason he went back to the crack house – not completely. Maybe a little, he just wanted to make sure. But they weren’t any thugs that would go to the trouble to kidnap a little girl from her house. Those dumbass motherfuckers would rather just sell some cellphones at a shady pawn shop and get some quick cash rather than setting up some elaborate scheme in human trade. His thoughts are cut short by:

“You lied to me.”

“Knew they didn’t have her.” He’s already tired of this and brushes past her, walking further into the woods. She takes a few seconds to compose herself before stalking after him, hears her picking up speed to catch up to him. And then he hears his fear becoming truth as she slips away and lands on the ground with a whiney sound. He sighs, more to himself than to the situation, and turns around.

Only to see Elizabeth reaching out to a piece of paper caught in the bushes. It’s got a bunch of those damn post-its on it she likes so much he sees, as she unfolds it. She looks at him with widened eyes. “It’s like… a map or something.”

He walks over, holding his hand out to her without thought. She takes it just as easily, both focused on the piece of paper in her hands. “These are all my things, from my craft table,” she says – probably with more pride than this situation asks for, indicating the glittery pens and colored flags and shit. When he sees her face scrunching up he’s so close to letting something fall out of his mouth if she’s judging the green-orange-purple color scheme Jane chose, because that would be something she’d be judgmental about, before his eyes catch something in the moss beneath a tree.

He sees some kaki rips of fabric in a twig on the ground. He picks it up and holds it in his hands. “They were here alright,” he mutters. As if it were even possible that Jane would have ran off without Marcus. But this could mean that they were hurt. He stares at the fabric in his hand, anger and worry boiling up in his chest again.

While Elizabeth tries to decipher Jane’s bad handwriting his cellphone goes off. The personal one, not the business one. And when he sees ‘Angela Ruiz-Whitaker’ flash on his screen, he already knows before he answers.

“You don’t say hello anymore?” his sister-in-law beams, but with a little note of annoyance.

Elizabeth notices, but he holds his index finger up to her to shut her up. “Be there in five,” he answers quickly, looking at the woman in front of him before cutting the call off. “I knew where they were,” he says, for the first time with a note of emotion, relieve, in his voice. For a moment forgetting he’ll be dragging her into yet another venture he’d rather keep her out off.

Within three minutes Rio and Elizabeth arrive at Lulu’s Laundromat that’s just one street away from the park. The bell of the store ringing aggressively as Rio pushes his way in, not even bothering to hold open the door for Elizabeth. “Where is he, Ange?” he barks, before realizing that this reaction is over the top and he regains his posture. “Where’s Marcus?” he asks again, calmly.

Angela pulls a lot of red and orange shaded towels from the washing machine and puts them into a dryer beneath it. “I thought you picked them up,” she says. After closing the dryer, she walks over to the counter. It is decorated with a bunch of homemade candles, incense, and mason jars with different vegetables. “Marcus said you were at the antique store.”

Rio drags his hand over his face, hating himself now that he has dropped Marcus off here before without talking to Ange or Lu before when he had to rush. Never had any problem with Marcus entertaining himself with one of his aunts or just looking at a washing machine doing its thing for ten to fifteen minutes while he dropped in and out to some business in the backroom there.

“You didn’t drop him off,” Angela says, catching onto what’s happening. She looks at Beth. “Take it you’re with the girl with the yellow cape?”

“Yes, Jane, is she okay?” she pitches in, rushing to the counter.

“They were fine. Marcus scraped his knee, but I dressed it up with a Ninja Turtle and it was fine. So,” she says, looking between the two of them, “What’s going on?”

And he sees it happening – Elizabeth putting up that fake-ass PTA front and smiling and shit. But he isn’t having any of that. “They ran off,” he says. And she makes a sound like she’s offended that he told this to what is to her an absolute stranger. “You know where they off to?”

He sees Ange is wrecking her mind to what without a doubt was a very short visit, playing what happened as a movie in her mind. She’s smart like that – and he kind of beats himself up that he has her and his sister running this store because he has to have a trustworthy front for business. But Ange had seemed surprisingly happy with this arrangement, having all the time in the world to make her homemade soaps and ointments.

“Jane said you were taking them on an adventure, and after that she’d go to see her nana ,” she says, frowning.

Rio has no idea what that means, but Elizabeth is pulling up that damn map again. It’s got three different routes on it, nothing with names. And Rio doesn’t know how Jane picked up this stealthy gene, because Elizabeth is perfectly fine communicating through unencrypted apps and doing business in public spaces without even checking for cameras.

“So where this dumbass’ mom live? We can be done with this shit.”

She flat out ignores him. “Did she say grandma or nana?” Elizabeth asks, tracing the orange line with her index finger.

“Nana.”

“Want me to alarm the troops?” Angela asks, whipping her phone out.

“Nah, I’ll let you know. It’s probably nothing,” Rio drawls, way too relaxed to be taken seriously. And the incredulous look Elizabeth gives him doesn’t really help. “Just kids going on an adventure, right?” he asks, diverting his attention to Elizabeth.

“Let’s move. Think we spend enough time together.”

“They’re not going to Judith’s. Jane knows she’s out of town, she dropped by last night.”

Rio sees her shutting down in front of him, grappling to hold onto parts of herself. It’s clear she doesn’t want to tell him more, but that just isn’t going to happen.

“Where ya ma at?” he asks, a little reluctantly. He knows she’ll go out of her way to give him the flimsiest of answers. Probably even trying to push him out of the search for his own kid, if that meant keeping something personal to herself. And between Elizabeth and her sister, he honestly has no idea how to even imagine the woman who raised--

“She’s dead,” she says.

“Sorry,” he says, but only because it seems appropriate. Angela is still floating around them, and the prospect to answering why he was such a dick to Marcus’ friends’ mom about her dead mother is not really an enticing prospect.

She gets up. “Don’t be,” she says coldly. But he sees the emotion swirling behind her eyes, hidden in the depts of her irises. But he really doesn’t want to get into that now.

He looks over her shoulder at the map again. “Ok, so where?”

“St. Gabriels’s,” she says, pointing a few blocks away on the map.

“Good luck with that,” Angela chimes in. “City bought them out after the flood last fall. They’ve been relocating all the remains since last month.”

“So how do we get there?” she asks, folding the map.

“I’d say go down 4th and climb the wall.”

She’s serious.

“Okay,” Elizabeth says confidently, like the crime thirsty bitch she is. He imagines the past three months haven’t been easy on her, no matter how many bake sales and dance recitals she lines up to fill the void. He’s staring. “Are you coming?” she asks, before bolting through the door.

‘Good luck,’ Angela mouths, one of her knowing smirks upon her face.

He smiles briefly and stalks after Elizabeth. Expecting to have to catch up to her, he sets into a heavy stride. But a few feet away he sees her, lifting a garbage can and throwing it against a glass bus stop. And – what? The glass doesn’t break, but a large crack is immediately visible, expanding like it’s ice cracking. But unlike the natural phenomenon, the deep grunt comes from her. He notices as he rushes over to prevent her from picking up that damn garbage can again.

Rio kicks the can away from her hands, which doesn’t help her mood. He pulls her into him, his arm circling around her waist as he drags her into the nearest alley. With all the trouble in the world he presses down what he can only describe as compassion, because he can’t have her useless like this. His voice is calm, but heavy as he says: “Whattaya gonna do? We ain’t calling no cops just for you to get your ass checked in for some criminal damage. Get a fucking grip, Elizabeth.”

And – oh, no. He didn’t want to touch her like this. A mocking stroke through her hair, a faux supporting hand on her shoulder – sure, to rile her up, to fake some security. Not like this. Not her using the calmer heaving of his chest to balance her own heartbeat. Her small hand covering his on her stomach, as if she’s shielding her, what could’ve been their--

Nope.

Not going there.

He clears his throat after a minute, sensing she’s here again. And it does its job in alarming her, as she quickly entangles from his grip, adjusting her coat in an attempted of modesty. He strokes his lower lip with his thumb, just having something to do as he’s trying to find his mental footing.

“I’m okay,” she says, followed by that dumb nod she does when she thinks a simple ‘okay’ doesn’t suffice. God, she’s stupid – if things had been different, he would have laughed.

“C’mon,” he says, “let’s find our kids, right?”. Glad that this will be a moment both of them immediately shove down into the depts of their psyche. Because, he realizes when the memory topples into the abyss, this feels definitely not okay at all.


	2. A Land Without Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As we continue Jane and Marcus' descend into the fantasy realm, Beth and Rio get really real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so I never thought this story would become so well liked when I started writing it! So, thank you all so much for leaving kudos and comments, and the nice messages I received on Tumblr. <33

Jane does not want to think about how this looks to Marcus. If she’s very objective this is like a rabid raccoon seeking through trash after starving through winter. But she feels like she’s just searching very thoroughly and actively for the map she made by dumping all the contents of her backpack onto the ground. She’s glad they’re alone in the middle of the jungle, because even Jane would see her despair as absolutely mortifying had they been in public.

She sags down onto a bed of leaves, legs pulled under her in Indian style. Her lip gets a little wobbly and her eyes start to get watery. “It’s gone,” she squeaks, throat clenching while she pushes back a crying fit. “We’re lost.” Which is an understatement to how she feels. _’We’re absolutely doomed, this is the end of the world and it will explode into a million smithereens’_ would have been more fitting, but she’s known Marcus long enough to know that he doesn’t fall for her streak of dramatics.

Yet his face-journey going from a mere surprise at the word ‘gone’, to him pulling up one eyebrow at ‘we’re lost’ like he’s her schoolteacher doing one of those short, strict coughs when reprimanding her for an urgent conversation during silent hour in class.

“We could just ask,” he – and, really, too much judgement in that tone – says.

Jane looks around, every direction covered in thick woodlands, trees reaching to who knows how high? At some point all the branches entangle, creating a ceiling of vines and leaves, shielding them from most of the daylight.

“Who?” she asks. And it’s not like they’re not surrounded by noises, there’s a lot of them actually; never-ending cricket chirps, birds twittering (not those boring fat grey birds, but the colorful ones from the cages in the pet store that sing really pretty), creaky lazy moans from trees and branches moving, snapping of twigs on the ground and the occasional yelps and calls from what she thinks are monkeys.

And just like that an absolute massive gorilla swings down from a tree and lands onto the ground with a loud thud, causing a mild earthquake.

“Them?” Marcus asks, completely unconcerned.

All the while Jane thinks she can’t even describe her eyes as saucers anymore. They’re more like serving plates. Or, you know, satellites astronauts use to send messages to life in outer space.

“Are you lost?” the gorilla asks in a sticky, sweet voice. She bats her eyelashes and smiles, revealing a set of the scariest teeth Jane has ever seen. Big vampire tusks on both rows, and in between teeth as big as dices. And she’s pretty sure she can smell the foulest of smells wafting from it, even though it’s standing a few feet away.

“We’re good,” Jane says, standing up. She swallows heavily, but doesn’t divert her eyes. She feels Marcus coming to stand a bit closer to her.

“Are you sure? Two little calves like you shouldn’t wander around by themselves,” she says, taking a step closer, while Jane and Marcus step one back.

And at first, Jane does feel like a calf. Not just anyone, but more like Bambi, scrambling to find footing on slippery ice. Crashing down when every time she feels any sense of steadiness.

But.

You know what.

She squares her shoulders and pushes her chin out. She’s not like Bambi, she’s Thumper. Brass and courageous – ok, and sure a little reckless maybe. But unlike Thumper, she doesn’t have her mommy around to stop her from saying not nice things. “Stranger Danger!” she belts out loudly, scrambling to get her stuff back together as the gorilla skittishly looks around herself.

Marcus locks eyes with her and quickly pitches in. “Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!”

Feet away behind the gorilla Jane hears the forest screeching and howling, a fast-approaching sound that feels like a tide wave rolling in fast, thickening the air around them. And it’s like the trees know, dropping their heavy vines for them to step onto. Marcus and her quickly jump onto one, and it curls around them strong but soft before hoisting them up into the air.

The gorilla is panicking on the ground, watching almost mournful as Jane and Marcus ascend, narrowing its eyes. She pumps her fists one the ground – once, twice, before wailing loud and ugly. The vibrations of it chilling through Jane’s bones. It takes one last, hard look at the two of them before hurrying away as an electric mist shooting red and blue lightning rolls in and covers the ground.

It all goes so fast; Jane hardly registers coming up to a treehouse. Not like the one with the purple slide in her back garden, more like a rural version of that. With crass planks and vines sewing those together in somewhat of a structure. Marcus, though, seems immediately drawn to the figure in front of them. “Pedro!” he says loudly when he falls into the arms of the large cricket in front of them. They hug right back. Like they’re friendly. Like they’re friends.

Jane moves into their space. “I’m Jane,” she smiles politely when Marcus and Pedro entangle from their embrace. And without warning, she starts choking a bit, feeling something wet travel up her throat. Marcus comes to her aid, patting her on the back as she holds out her hand in front of her, ready to catch whatever is coming up.

It’s a fish again. It flops silly in her hand, gasping for air.

“You can leave that here,” Pedro smiles genuine, making magicians’ hand gesture at a fishbowl that’s perched upon a raggedy table. He acts like nothing happened. “Oh, I know! Marcus told me about you when we hung out at Lulu’s a few weeks ago.”

He seems keen to tell Jane more about him and Marcus, but Jane really doesn’t want to waste any more time on this. “Do you know where the ghosts are?” she cuts in. If he lives here he should know, right? She knows they must be close; it was about three blocks from the park. It’s silly, but she does kind of mourn all the effort she put in crafting that map for weeks. Discussing all the details with Marcus over the app. Coming up with excuses of working on school projects that didn’t exist – mommy has looked at her a bit funny about that. They had recycled a bunch of school projects from Emma and Danny before. Jane wasn’t that keen on schoolwork, and they usually had the same assignments in each year. So Jane’s sudden urge to work on new, non-existent assignments had brought up some questions. To be sure there wouldn’t be any more unwanted intrusion she switched to working on them when daddy played with his Legos.

“Why would you want to go there?” Pedro asks, tipping his top hat.

“Because we want to,” Jane presses.

“Jane wants to see her abuela,” Marcus explains.

Jane whips her head around so fast she almost snaps her neck.

“Alright-y!” Pedro pipes up, oblivious. He makes his way to a cabinet hiding out back and extracts three umbrellas. He hands Marcus and Jane both one and lets his hand travel up and down his own. “Don’t open it yet!” he warns when he sees Jane fumbling with the clasp. She stops immediately, looking at Marcus for some guidance, but he just shrugs.

Pedro motions for them to follow him to a deck out back. The view is vastly different from where they were standing on the forest floor. The environment was damp, and thick, and sheltered from the outside world. But the view here, it stretches wide across the horizon. Light blue skies expanding all across the sky, just a touch of a few puffy clouds. They are at the edge of the forest, leaving the dark behind as they follow Pedro to the edge of the deck.

He opens his umbrella. “You too,” he says. And Marcus and Jane follow his example of opening their umbrella’s. And, look, Jane isn’t someone to back down easily. But her umbrella looks like it’s eaten by moths, which doesn’t exactly enforce her trust in this situation.

“Are you sure?” she asks, her voice higher pitched than she wanted.

“You scared?” he asks, smiling shyly.

And nobody tells Jane that to her face without experiencing the consequences. So she runs to the end of the deck, opens her umbrella, and lets the wind take her where she needs to go.

*

“You’re not reading the map right,” Elizabeth fusses, as she turns the paper around in his hands. And, really, what does it even matter. If they follow Angela’s instructions, they could easily cut them off. But he suspects she’s kind of reluctant of arriving there at all.

“Yeah? Whattaya, a girl scout now?” he jokes, grimacing enough to play it off sarcastically.

Elizabeth flushes instantly, her mouth setting in a hard line.

First his thought drift to Elizabeth, younger, wearing one of them pink ensembles, bossing a bunch of other girls around while they tie together a raft on the grass near a lake. One of those girls you wanna be in a group with because she’ll make you pass with five gold stars on your assignment, but also the one you don’t really want to hang out with after. But he can’t exactly repress the thought of picturing her adult version, still in her little skirt and sash with a million badges on it – before slapping himself in the face mentally, pulling him back to reality.

He puts a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her stride. “Imma check here real quick, Marcus knows their kid,” he says, stopping in front of a cute little garden center. The look she gives him is bordering on insulting. And he really doesn’t know how much of those he can take in a day from her to be honest.

“Maybe they got some flowers?” he says. “For ya ma?”

And that finally seems to kick some sense into her. Got her gazing at the ones presented outside in buckets of water.

“Okay.”

It’s clear that this is all he’s gonna get, so he decides to just leave her here on the sidewalk and step into the store. It’s not a money-cleaning business, but he pays the owner a monthly amount to keep a large sum of clean money safe in their backroom. Or, wherever, really. They could be stashing it in the mattress of their son for all he cares.

“Rio,” Rocky, the woman behind the counter says, with a little note of surprise in her voice. She tucks a strand of long-ago bleached blond hair behind her ear. “Can I help you?”

He gets her surprise; he never really visits. Went by to reel them in years ago, dropped by to get some flowers for his mom or his sister once or twice.

“Seen Marcus? Kinda lost track of him,” he smiles. And Rocky visibly relaxes, she’s not losing her side-job. Sometimes he does forget what 300 dollars a month means to someone.

“No, I’m sorry, can’t say I did. Pedro’s grounded upstairs, he’ll think twice about coming down,” she smiles nervously.

Rio turns around and sees Elizabeth through the window talking to another white lady with a brown-haired bob, looking all awkward. “Got a few flowers for my girl out there?” he asks.

Rocky smiles and starts gathering a bunch of flowers to roll in one of them cellophane wraps, putting a cherry on top with a little ribbon. He takes the bouquet and gives her a fifty, which is highly overpriced. “Call Mick if you get something on Marcus,” he tells her, and walks out.

“How’s it going, babe?” he says, circling an arm around her waist.

It’s not even funny – okay, maybe a little – how quick she tenses in his grasp.

“Who’s this, Beth?” the woman asks, looking like she’s ready to call the cops on him.

He plants a kiss on her hairline. And that was a mistake, he feels it in all the fibers of his body. The only comfort is that she may be even worse here, judging by the red flush creeping up her chest and cheeks. “This is Rio,” she says, stumbling over every word of that little sentence. “He’s the dad of one of Jane’s friends.”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “We real good friends too, aren’t we?” he says suggestively.

(It’s just, he can’t help it, knows it’s dumb and petty but ugh. He’s suffered through Mick’s eyerolls enough after returning from a No Elizabeth Murder Night again. The other guy casually looking up from polishing his custom ninja throwing stars - don’t start about it, it’s a whole thing, and Rio’s convinced the man can’t even get them into a wall a three feet away if he wears that one jacket - waiting for Rio to cock his head and ask: “What?”

“Nothing,” he had replied, dipping a cloth into the jar of polish.

“’Nothing’?” Rio had repeated – a little more petulant than he intended. “What are you, my wife?”

Ever so slowly, the corners of Mick’s mouth had turned upwards. “Heard spot’s taken.”

Rio may have keyed Mick’s car that night.)

Beth smiles back stiffly.

He diverts his attention back to the other woman. “Yo,” he says, not even bothering to extend his hand. “Who are you?”

“Asmita Smith,” she replies, smiling both kind and creepily. “My youngest is in class with Jane.”

Rio tightens his grips on Elizabeth’s waist, even feels her lean into it a little. And that wasn’t the fucking plan. She was supposed to act awkward and embarrassed about this, cowering in his hold, preferably even immediately retracting. But this dumbass just puts her hand on his chest and smiles at Anita. “We’re kind of in a rush,” like, dragging that ‘u’ obnoxiously. “Do you mind?” he hears her say.

But it sounds more like a feverish drum in his ears, creeping a way into his brain. And he doesn’t get it. If this woman is the PTA material he thinks she is, this is a rumor that will spread within seconds after they part ways. Why is she doing this? He can’t place it, and it’s infuriating him. Soon to be followed by being mad at himself to even care about this shit at all.

“Yeah, been real fun, right, ma?” his brain can assemble.

What an idiot. He looks into her eyes, and he has said exactly what she wanted him to say. Or so he thinks, seeing her pleased look at Anita’s horrified expression. Wow, she really must hate this woman to put up with him like that.

“So nice to meet you,” he says. “But we’re kinda busy. See you at the next bake sale,” he says, dragging Elizabeth along with him. Obviously he doesn’t intend to do any of that, but he can’t help but entertaining the thought. How life would be if he had her by his side, going to mundane things she deems of the upmost importance. Not just bake sales, but scout weekends, parent-teacher conferences. Fuck man, he’s doing it again.

Elizabeth entangles from his grip as soon as they turn the corner.

“Wanna tell me what that was about?” he asks, super indifferently.

“Nothing,” she says, extracting Jane’s map from her pocket. It’s not even useful, they’re close to the cemetery now. She knows exactly where they’re at.

“Lotta nothing,” he says, pushing his hands into his pockets. Finding them both empty. His eyes lock on the map in Elizabeth’s hands before he realizes that _she stole it from his pocket!_ He’s not going to mention it, will wait to throw that back into her face later. The face that’s acting all angelic right next to him while her eyes glide over the paper, and she traces the orange route with her index finger like she’s in Uncharted 4 or something. If Uncharted 4 had a chapter called: Lethal Housewives, the Inevitable Deathtrap.

They walk in silence for a while before Elizabeth’s phone is starting to go off like a firecracker. “Whole lotta nothing,” he comments innocently, as she digs irritated into her pocket to extract her phone. He sees the name ‘Dean Boland’ flashing brightly on the screen, and Elizabeth hoovers her finger a little too long over it before she answers.

 _”You’re with him?”_ he hears her husband’s voice, high pitched and frantic on the other side of the line.

She turns away from Rio, trying to block him from this conversation. Which would maybe have worked if her volume wasn’t deafening him from six feet away.

“Our children made a scavenger hunt,” she replies, calm, her voice dripping with honey. She notices him listening in and covers her phone with her other hand while she looks at him, until her attention gets drawn back to her conversation. He’s got a feeling hubby’s holding a lamenting monologue about Elizabeth being spotted out in the wild with him, how it’ll look – and from the annoyed look on her face he’d say his prediction is pretty accurate. Her expression softens. “I can’t put Kenny on, he’s at the skate ramp.”

“Dean, he’s twelve, he should start hanging out with his friends by himself a little more.”

Rio can barely hide his amusement that she actually listened to him when he was judging her back at the playground.

“No, _Emma_ is at a birthday in Ashfield. Danny’s in Livonia with his friend from ping pong.”

She stares blankly ahead of her. “Can we not do this now? It’s the only sport he likes, and he really likes Aziz.” After a brief pause: “I’ll text you the addresses.” She hangs up.

Rio’s just staring at her.

“He keeps crying and falling down when a ball hits him,” she starts explaining, boldly assuming that he actually cares about that. She whips out the map again and looks him in the eye when he doesn’t show any indication of getting on with it.

“What?”

“Nah, nothin’. Figured Carman wouldn’t’ve stuck around.”

She looks back puzzled.

He drops his gaze to her belly, before dragging it back up.

Elizabeth bites her lip and starts fumbling with the paper in her hands.

It hits him. “He doesn’t know.” He doesn’t really know if he finds that entertaining or not.

“It’s none of his business,” she says, obviously dying to put a halt to this conversation. And to amplify her point she bristles off, expecting him to follow.

“Yeah? So, riddle me this, right?” he says, when he caught up with her. Her neck and chest already showing splotches of red, highlighting the embarrassment she so desperately tries to shut down from displaying to him. “You pushin’ out our little bundle of joy.” She grimaces, increasing her pace, as if trying to lose him., putting in a lot of effort to zigzag through the other pedestrians on the sidewalk. “Lookin’ like the caramel dream all ya suburban friends will be cooing over.”

“That’s offensive,” she says righteously, without looking at him.

He laughs, but it’s not kind. “So, I’m thinking, how she got that played out, huh? Cuz, see, I think you know I ain’t having that dumbass raise my kid.”

Elizabeth stops abruptly and turns towards him, her face flushed, angry, eyes watery but narrowed while she locks his gaze. “I don’t know, okay! I thought you were dead!” she says far too loud, passing byers giving them strange looks. For a few seconds all they hear around them is the sound of traffic, a biker cursing at a driver before the latter honks loudly, a tram ringing its bells bristly when woman suddenly steps onto the road.

“I don’t know,” she repeats, tired.

A tiredness that is reflected in his own eyes.

She tears her eyes away from him and turns.

“Elizabeth,” he says.

“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“No,” he says, eyeing the wall and the boarded gate they are standing in front of. It’s a heavy, stone wall stretching about twenty yards between a Chinese take-out and a hipster vintage bookstore slash coffee shop. It’s an old built, before the city expanded it was probably with vast views across the country, now it’s blocked in by apartment buildings, and a sad 70’s mall. The dark iron gate which once had grandeur, now hanging crooked in its hinges, closed by thick rusty chains.

“Oh.”

“Them scouts are a damn sham giving you a treasure huntin’ badge or whatnot.”

And he’s not even sure _he_ intended that to be anywhere near funny, but Elizabeth claps a hand in front of her mouth while she muffles a laugh, her eyes lighting up again. He feigns being upset.

“Can’t even trust the pink berets anymore. We’re truly doomed.”

Now she’s snorting through her hand, before dropping it and completely cracking up. It’s obvious she’s conflicted, it’s like they both revel in this tiny timeless bubble before reality burst through and pulls them back into what they are, instead if something they were, or could have been. Before that thought takes over his brain Rio takes hold of a near graffitied dumpster, pulling it in front of the wall, its busted wheels screeching on the pavement.

He wastes no time climbing onto it, extending his hand to her without much thought.

After wiping at her eyes, removing the mascara that ran a little while she had her fit of laughter, she moves towards him. She pauses momentarily, taking a few moments to just look at his hand before tentatively sliding her small one into his.

It’s warping his mind into rewind; his hand covering hers when she grabbed the tequila shot, grabbing her trembling thigh in the waiting room, his fingers fluttering against her soft tresses in the bar, her warm breath on his lips when he told her to get out of his house, their fingers weaved together as he thrust into her on her marital bed – He pulls her up onto the dented dumpster lid, refusing to look at her. When she’s steady she quickly extracts her hand from his, as if burned, if not she’s certainly leaving a scorching sensation on his hand.

He clears his throat before looking at her, and she can’t exactly hide the turmoil in her eyes, but she’s not acknowledging something either.

The corners of her mouth turn into a grim smile, ever so slightly. “You’re right.”

Now he does give her a bewildered look.

“Gave me a Gun Safety Badge too.”

And that’s… he gives her a sad smile. They have some seas yet to cross.

*

It’s not until they start nearing their destination the sky starts getting cloudier, and the wind starts picking up. Jane’s umbrella is shaking more and more, regardless of how much she tries to steady it with her tiny hands. Even though it’s gotten foggy on the ground, she can now see the tops of the weeping willows surrounding the lake in the center of the cemetery. Her yellow cape swishes angrily around her, hitting her in the face while she looks around her to see if she can still spot Marcus. He’s hard to see, but she can see a fleck of his red sweater a few feet away from her.

“Marcus!” she calls out.

He doesn’t respond and a stone-cold feeling of dread starts spreading in her chest. Only amplified when she hears her umbrella rip at one of the iron arms. It’s throwing her whole trajectory off balance and she feels herself starting to spiral. It’s maybe thirty feet left before she’ll hit the ground, it’ll be fine, it’ll be _fine_.

“Jane!” she hears above her.

Before she’s able to respond she crashes into one of the trees, its heavy leaves softening her blow immensely. After a few seconds she shakes her head a little, taking in her surroundings. She can’t see that much though, the willow she landed in must be ancient, tall, with a thick bark and miles of green strings of tears descending from its many branches. The umbrella lies wrangled in a branch she can’t reach.

It’s just a few seconds later when she hears two loud splashes. Followed by Marcus exclaiming ‘Ew!’, and Pedro giggling about it.

With so many branches in the tree it’s not that hard to climb down, but she’s careful not the get her cape or backpack entangled, she can’t really afford to lose those too. When she jumps down from the final branch, she’s just in time to see Pedro pulling Marcus from the lake. And it’s just, Marcus always looks so put together, in a way Jane maybe looks like when they are having Thanksgiving over at grandma’s, but now he’s just…

Marcus clocks it. The way Jane is biting her lip to not break at the sight of him. Beige pants drenched with murky lake water, his sweater covered in a few underwater plants, his hair ruffled by the umbrella flight and the plunge into the water. “Don’t,” he says, almost threatening.

And it’s enough to push Jane over the edge, she completely collapses in a fit of laughter. Caught up in her emotions, she doesn’t notice the willow moving behind her, encircling Jane’s mouth with a few of its many pendulous branches, shutting the girl up immediately. “Do you not know where you are?” the willow sniffles, a hollow female voice that cuts straight to Jane’s bones.

She turns around in the willow’s grasp. “ _Hmw hwrry_ ,” she says.

The branches relax around her and fall away. Jane sucks in a shaky breath. She looks over her shoulder to Marcus and Pedro, the former already walking over to join her, but the latter is checking his own (uneaten by moths – just to make a point of this again) umbrella, before opening it. “I have to leave; my mom will check on me again soon.”

He tips his top hat as Jane and Marcus wave him goodbye. The willow also shaking a branch at him, while he disappears into the fog and the clouds.

“They all leave me,” the willow sighs.

“Who leaves you?” Jane asks, their attention now fully on the tree.

The willow shakes its heavy canopy, in a way of looking around her. And that’s when Jane and Marcus really start seeing what’s going on around them. Or rather, what’s not around them anymore. Old gravestones lay piled upon each other gracelessly, some even cracked or broken. And where there used to be graves and tombs there’s holes in the ground, some filled with muddy water from the rain from yesterday. Between the graves are construction machinery and men walking around in bright yellow hardhats.

She feels Marcus put a hand on her shoulder, but Jane is not ready to accept this situation. “Where is everybody?” she asks, feeling her throat tightening up.

“They took them away,” the tree laments. “Soon they’ll take me too,” she adds, motioning to another willow a few feet away, cut down and sawn into slices. “Maybe it’s okay. I can be a coffee table. Or a casket.”

“Where are they!” Jane belts angrily, tears prickling in the corners of her eyes.

“Or a canoe. Maybe I can have fun for a while.”

“Jane.”

“I have to find her. Or mommy will stay sad forever!” Jane says to Marcus, before her face completely crumbles and she breaks down into tears, sagging down onto her knees into the wet grass. It’s a little awkward, but Marcus sits down on his hunches in front of her and envelops her into a hug, and, great, now she’s crying even harder.

*

_**A little over a year ago.** _

_“Once upon a time, in a very, very cold land, far far away, a very brave warrior girl lives in a big castle in the woods. She has a long fishtail braid, red warpaint on her face, and fur coats, and a big bow with flaming arrows to protect her brothers and sister.”_

_“No.”_

_“No?” Beth asks, sitting in her bed next to Jane. Jane fiddles with her dubby, furrowing her brow._

_“No brothers and sister. Just you.”_

_“Oh-kay, how ‘bout your daddy?”_

_Jane drops her dubby and looks at Beth like ‘really’? “Daddy got robbed. He’s with the healer at the medical fort.”_

_Beth laughs. “Of course, obviously.” She dims the light a little. It’s getting pretty late, but ever since Dean’s been shot Jane has been tense and anxious. Going to bed and sleeping for a while, until she wakes after a few hours and comes to seek Beth out, preferably to crawl into bed with her. She’s usually not that peppy, falling asleep pretty fast, but tonight is not one of those nights._

_“And then what happens?” Jane asks._

_Beth scoots more under the blankets, Jane mirrors her. “So the warrior girl has a mommy, and she’s the boss of the castle. And the girl is the crown princess, she’ll be the queen of the castle when her mommy gets too old for it.”_

_Jane giggles. “You’re already old, mommy.”_

_“Do you want a story or not?” Beth says sternly, but amused._

_Jane throws her dubby over her head to hide before peek-a-booing back again. “Yes.”_

_“The people at the castle are warriors, but they’re also thieves,” she whispers conspiratorially. “But they only steal from the bad, rich people. You see, the bad people do not want to share their food with the people in the woods. But it’s a really cold winter, so cold the trees are freezing and there’s almost no animals in the woods anymore. And the bad people have a lot of food in their cellars, enough for everyone in the land.”_

_“Why don’t they share?”_

_“You see, the people from our castle, the Wolves, they aren’t the only thieves in the woods. There’s another group of people, the… Fowls, they are thieves too, but they will steal from anyone. They don’t care if people get hurt.”_

_“How do we steal?”_

_“We have bows, and arrows with a sleeping potion.”_

_“Did they attack daddy’s carriage?”_

_“Yes. Yes, they did.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because mommy told the bad people where their castle was, and they didn’t like that. But see, mommy had to do that, because she had to protect you and the other people in the castle. She didn’t know daddy was going on a trip alone that night, otherwise she would have stopped him.”_

_“Where was daddy going then?”_

_Beth decides not to answer that. “But you see, something new happened. There was someone else who wants to hurt us, but not just us, also the other thieves. So they set up a meeting in the woods, just the King of the Fowls and the Queen of the Wolves, and three of their most trusted people.”_

_“Am I there?”_

_“Of course, you’re the best bow-woman of the castle. And we also bring Aunt Ruby and Aunt Annie because they advise us and fight with us every day. So, it’s really dark and spooky in the woods when we meet. It’s a plain, snowy field and it’s lit by the stars and the torches we brought. It’s so still, you can only sometimes hear a branch, or an owl screeching.”_

_“Owls hoot. Hoooot-hoot-hoooooot.”_

_“Shhhh, honey. That is how the Fowls find each other. But maybe it’s good that you did, because do you hear that? That’s a boy’s voice hooting back at us. So, the King comes from the woods, he’s got two of his generals with his, and his son, the Prince. It’s a good meeting, we get to a truce, at least for as long as we are both under fire. But then a bad thing happens.”_

_“What happens?”_

_“There’s arrows being shot at us from the woods. We scatter away, and we lose sight of Aunt Annie and Aunt Ruby. But that’s not the worst thing, one of the arrows brushes your arm. It’s just a light scrape, it shouldn’t be so bad. But you get pale, and I have to carry you. It’s so dark in the woods, we can’t see, but we run into the King and his son as they get onto their horses. And he takes us back to his castle.”_

_“Isn’t that dangerous?”_

_“It’s more dangerous to stay in the woods, so we have to. When we get to their castle, we send a pigeon to our own, to let them know we’re okay.”_

_“Are we okay?”_

_“Mommy’s okay, but the arrow that hit you had a potion on it too, like ours. But it’s not a sleeping potion, it’s something else, something that makes you really sad. So sad that you want to stay in bed, but you don’t want to sleep. The Fowls have really good healers in their castle, but no one knows what’s wrong with you. They try potions, ointments—”_

_“Do they try the needles like Melina’s mom sticks into people?”_

_“Sure, they try that too, but it doesn’t work, you’re still so sad. But after two days I run into the prince’s mom in a little herb store at their market square.”_

_“If she’s the prince’s mom, isn’t she the queen?”_

_“No, the King doesn’t have a queen. But that’s okay, she doesn’t want to be, because she’s a Sorceress, and she doesn’t believe in the potions and ointments the healers use. So, she chants a spell over mommy, so now, whenever you feel bad, mommy can kiss it better. And later, when you are a mommy, you can kiss your little girl better. And I’m not really sure if I believe it yet, but I go back to you in the castle and I sit down on your bed. And it’s like you know there’s something different, because you smile, just a little at me, before I bend down and kiss you on the forehead, and I lights us both up, shining like a beacon in the nights.”_

_Jane is so sleepy; her eyes are more closed than open while she’s curled beneath the blankets and pillows. “What happens when you get sad?”_

_Beth smiles, and kisses her on the forehead. “Mommy’s don’t get sad.”_

*

Jane entangles herself from Marcus’ embrace and gets back on her feet. She sniffles a little, still, her eyes red from crying. The clouds are rapidly darkening now, and the sky starts roaring all around them. It’s Marcus who gets up an says: “We have to find shelter! It’s going to rain.”

And, right. She looks briefly at the willow, but she looks like she completely retreated into herself again. Jane feels the rain lightly starting to powder her head already. The cemetery is desolate, the figures with the yellow hats already gone from their machinery, hiding in the colorful containers near the entrance. There are not buildings left to hide in themselves, and she’s getting nervous, never liked the thunder, always feels it drumming into her bones.

Marcus grabs her hand. “C’mon.”

He drags her along the pebbled paths that zigzag through the remains of the cemetery, pulling her towards the back entrance. It’s an old stone wall, covered in moss and vines, with a, mostly rotten, wooden door. Marcus kicks against one of the fragile planks, and on the second kick it breaks off, creating a hole large enough for them to slip through.

Jane is a bit disoriented, she doesn’t know this neighborhood, but Marcus does, and he confidently drags her towards a large building where what looks like an emergency door is ajar – it’s really the only way they can go, they’re in a little outdoor area that’s framed by tall walls. And it’s dark inside, at first, before they open a second door that opens into a room that gives a strong blue hue, and they both get a huge smile upon their face.

Jane takes a few steps forward and looks around her in awe. “We’re underwater!”

*

Rio doesn’t bother to help her down the stack of pallets on the other side of the wall, even though she’s struggling to balance herself in her heels and with her bag of snacks and juice packs and whatnot. Maybe he should wave a stack of money at her, so she’ll get a move on.

“What’s that _smell_?” she exclaims when she gets down onto the ground.

And it’s like what she’s talking about invades his senses all at once. Warm, putrid wafts of ammonia and decay invade every cavity of his body. He pulls his t-shirt over his mouth and nose, as he sees her do the same with her hand. There’s a loading dock to a large building and he motions for her to follow him. Fortunately, the door is unlocked, and as soon as they step inside they both take large gulps of fresh, air-conditioned, air.

“Please tell me this isn’t St. Gabriel’s,” she gasps through ragged breaths, as she leans against the wall of the hallway they spilled into.

Rio still feels a little bile creeping up the back of his throat when he replays their route back in his mind, before he realizes they took a right too soon after their run-in. “Nah, it’s at the other side of this.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widen. “Are we at the morgue?”

“Yeah, figure we might check it out, seeing as you had this one-way trip planned out for me. Never got to visit.”

Her eyes glaze over, but she stares back at him defiantly. And if he’s completely honest, he’s not really looking to pick this battle right now, he just wants to get to Marcus.

“It’s fish,” he says, but she just waits for him to explain himself. He pushes himself from his side of the wall and starts walking, she follows a few steps behind. “My cousin worked here in the summer. Feeding fish, cleaning tanks, taking care of old and sick dolphins and orca’s and stuff before they die.”

“They die here?” Beth asks, when they reach a large warehouse area. It’s mostly dark and dimly lit, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s here working. There are multiple large tanks covering the floor, empty or with dirty water, and the temperature has significantly risen since they exited the hallway. He sees the room is unsettling her as she wraps her arms around herself.

And, look, it’s not like he doesn’t realize what is going through her mind. Can still feel the hot burn of the bullet wounds when she first shot him, and he was laying in the dark on his back in his empty apartment. Possibly the last person he’d ever see being Turner, gleefully waving his cell around in his face, that was just a blur of light at that point. Grasping at every thread for a chance of life, thankful.

That’s probably what Turner was thinking. Feeling like one of them rich guys on a paid holiday to shoot a giraffe, but instead of giving him a pity shot through the head, capturing him in cage while he licked his wounds. But see, Rio wasn’t a giraffe, he was an orca. Never meant to be captured and confined. Playing the game of the aquarium, being patient, until the sea was empty of competition and he could trap his capturer. Just because an animal fits in a cage, doesn’t mean it belongs there.

He had been so ready that night in the bar to just end it with Elizabeth. No goodbyes, no last words, he’d listen to her pleas in the car while he’d drive her to a desolate place where no one could hear her cries. The anger and resentment of the months before having numbed out any other feeling he may have felt towards her while he circled around between the walls of his hotel room. Her end just as dark and empty and alone and his would have been. The final eye for an eye of their cat and mouse game.

“Can’t have a rotten egg with the family, ma,” he sighs. “Infect the lot of them, fucking everybody up. Bad for business.”

She’s looking at him now, unreadable. “So you’ve told me.”

Her mouth curls into an apologetic smile. “I could really use a drink.”

“Yeah, I can’t have too many. Somebody fucking up my spleen and all,” he replies, but for the first time it feels a little more lighthearted, aa little less of a sardonic joke. If she picks up on that she doesn’t mention it.

They cross the remainder of the warehouse, and it doesn’t look like it is used like Rio said anymore. With all the tanks looking empty and unused. The large iron shelves lining the wall stacked with what Rio can only assume it dry fish food and utilities for the science lab. He pulls open the emergency exit at one of the walls, only to be welcomed by a pleasant blue hue on the other side.

When they step into the new area, they are completely engulfed by a glass tunnel, sea life surrounding them, as if they are walking on the bottom of the ocean. Even Rio’s momentarily captured by the colors of the reef and coral, not to mention the abundance of tropical fish, stingray’s and sea sponges swirling around them. It has been a while since he’s been surrounded by beauty like this, and he takes his time taking it all in.

“Rio, I…” she starts, and he slowly diverts his attention back to her – a little taken a back that she is actually saying his name. She’s fumbling again with the hem of her blouse, but she’s looking at him. And she is raw and open, nothing there of that front he hates so much.

“Am I your rotten egg?”

And it feels like the glass ceiling above them cracks open, only inside him. The water roaring and surging down, crashing everything that’s in its wake. The ugly pus of his wounds finally releasing its purchase on the festering wounds of his spleen, lung, his heart. It feels like a shadow is leaving his body with the flushed-out water, leaving him just as bare as the look in her eyes. And he needs to stop this, he cannot be like this, can’t _answer_ this.

But before he has any time a rationally mull his thoughts over, he’s reaching out to her, his hand cupping her cheek while she keeps looking at him – all of him. And maybe they can have this, this one moment in time, before it’s all over. When he collects his bag of money from her that won’t take her a lifetime, to disentangle her from his business, to rid himself of this woman completely that has been dragging him down like an anchor, holding him back while he tries to fiercely cut through the waters like he has always done.

But the thing about anchors is, you can hack away at the chains for ages, but they won’t budge, you’ll barely leave a scratch. The only way to stop the counterbalance is to tend to the winch with care, oil the wheels and reel it in slowly, deliberately. And since the other option is to abandon ship, Rio subconsciously decides to take the tough road.

They find themselves closer together than he thought, close enough to breathe each other in. As if a switch he can't control got turned on, he's pressing his lips against hers softly, searching and exploring like the first time in her bedroom. It’s taken her aback, he can tell by the way she stiffens her back and trembles against his hand, but she’s not backing down. He feels her trying to lean back, but he won’t give her space now. His hand slides into her hair and he pulls her closer against him, pushing more into her until he feels her opening up for him.

It’s like the dam has truly broken now, both of them pouring all things unsaid into this kiss. She moans as he tightens his grip into her hair, and he growls when she bites his lip. Touching it briefly with his free hand before attacking her mouth again. It’s just that, a moment, one that they can both forget after this is all done – pretend like it never happened – they’re just reeling in the anchor. And it’s not until the very last second his awareness breaks through the fog she’s created in his head. Too late.

_“Mommy?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Only one chapter left after this one! I can't believe we're almost there already. Will there be a happy ending?
> 
> Also, if you want to send me a message I'm also on [Tumblr](https://missmaxime.tumblr.com/) (Yes, also for anons, I knew I didn't had it on when I posted the first chapter, but that's fixed now).

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for the prompt, prompter! I really enjoy writing it, which you may or may not have noticed if you follow me on tumblr. It's going to be a total of three chapters, because plotting got the best of me.


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